Mainer’s Message in a Bottle Surfaces 36 Years Later on Cape Cod
In 1983, an 11-year-old sent a Coke bottle into the ocean, only to be found a few hundred miles away decades later.
Sounds like this will someday be a commercial.
While throwing any sort of garbage into the ocean would likely net you a hefty fine today, it seemed okay in 1983. Or, at least acceptable for the serendipitous aspect of writing your feelings in a bottle, tossing them into the ocean, and hoping that somehow, some way it will find it's proper destiny, and everyone lives happily ever after.
It's cute, poetic, and a romantic comedy cliche. However, cliches exist for a reason, and we have a story like this.
In 1983, right at the height of the original Pepsi Challenge, Jenny Brown tossed a Coke bottle with a letter into the Atlantic. Fast forward 36 years, where Joshua Mendes was beachcombing (antique bottles are a big thing) in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Just a few days shy of Thanksgiving, he found the bottle buried in sand about a mile from Race Point Ranger Station in the Cape Cod National Seashore, according to the Bangor Daily News. The bottle was dated for May 14th, 1983, and gives the address of a Jonesport, Maine post office box.
Also, it contains a note: “Please write me.”